


A smaller god

by hauntedpoem



Series: Maglor through the ages [4]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, incarnation cycles, modern age
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-02-24 15:41:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21860344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hauntedpoem/pseuds/hauntedpoem
Summary: Maglor lives and meets Sauron many ages into the future.Maglor watched and learned again and again that his memory was coming back, that his eyes did not deceive him. He saw one of them, bathed in light, red, blue, green, bathed in dark light. It pooled at his feet like a shroud of olden times. He looked unchanged but confused, altered in ways that were hard to be put into words.He thought he knew him but he did not. This thought gave him no respite.
Series: Maglor through the ages [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/635774
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	A smaller god

From where he knelt, Maglor could see the millions of grains of sand, all colorful, all bearing life and a mystery of their own; all quiet and expectant before him like a mosaic of sorts. He gripped the hilt of his sword. He knew very well every detail of its form, its texture, its weight in his right hand. Such familiarity with a weapon spoke volumes of Maglor's endeavors as of late. He grasped the broad, sharp blade in both hands and drove it through his neck, or rather pushed his upper body into it. The purpose was clear.

Maglor Finwion began to bleed. There were millions of tiny grains of sand under him and blood started flowing like a river, permeating red and viscous the life, the color and mystery of those miniatures. The beach was quiet on that day. The sky, overcast, the sea roaring in the darkening of the season.

Seagulls were flying purposefully but none cried into the sky. A strong breeze lifted the sand from the ground and along with it Maglor’s long hair. He struggled and although not dead, he maintained a quietness about him that fit very well into that peaceful landscape. He gurgled blood but it seemed he failed to finish what he started for some reason. Seagulls began walking carefully around him, inspecting the struggling form but not daring to steal his possessions. The sword fell to the ground, heavy and bloody; fine particles of sand began to gather on the blade and stick there as it was blown heavily by the marine breeze.

Maglor writhed in pain and pressed his hands to the wound in his neck. Although his eyes moved frantically and his chest heaved violently, he vibrated relief through the pain that began overcoming his control over his body. He gurgled some more trying to clear his mouth of the overflowing blood but the scream came out distorted and it was carried away by the wind. The blood spurted this time and something seemed to have been broken forever, out of Maglor’s control. He turned to the side grabbing the hilt of his sword again. He pushed on his elbows trying to get into a proper stance for a suicide, managed to see the sea for one last time until blackness enveloped him.

The seagulls started crying in the distance, diving for fish into the sea. Waves broke into white foam as they reached the rocks on the shore. The wind blew Maglor’s hair away from his face as he lay with eyes closed. Blood began pooling into the sand with no remorse. Arda was hungry. The problem and the start of everything was that Maglor did not die.

*

A bustling place filled with the creations of Man. Traffic noises and the smell of gyros from the street food van. Thai massage and SPA to the right and a translation firm to the left. Which city was this again? Maglor must have been in this very place several decades ago before it was so crowded and so toxic. There was an ice-cream stand in front of him and Maglor closed his eyes and tried to focus through the madness. The City of Man. They were all the same. He went to the right and looked above the Thai Massage and SPA sign. His eyes noticed the fresh writing on a “TO LET” sign next to a private accountant cabinet. He moved towards it with purpose, carrying what few possessions he had in a travel bag.

Rose “Shanti” Albieri was a half-Brazilian in her late 50s. She had been a yoga instructor since her twenties, went to India, Nepal and the Himalayas. Never married, never had children. Owned three cats and a chinchilla from the Italian boy across the street who had to give it away because his father absolutely hated animals. It was difficult to maintain peace while one of the cats was eyeing the chinchilla as its next meal. Of course, Shanti reminded herself, she should take the chinchilla to the yoga studio and get her paired so at least she won’t feel lonely.

She pushed aside thoughts of what paperwork she had to fill in order to get this place moving and smiled genially at the couple consisting of a man and a woman in their late thirties, no children but owners of a large dog. She doubted the place would suit them, especially the dog. The energy was simply not there. She could already see the misunderstandings that would plague them and the impending divorce. The dog would go with the man until his new girlfriend would run him over with the car. She closed her eyes violently. She was tired. She opened the exit door obligingly. She did not want them living in this apartment any more than she wanted to see them suffer.

A man was waiting patiently down the hall and she greeted him with open palms.

“Come in, stranger.” He had a quiet vibe about him. Actually, her intuition didn't alert her if anything. Which in her terms was still good.

He was tall and beautiful. In fact, she has never seen a man so enchanting as this one. Slate eyes and dark chestnut hair with a deep red tint in natural light. Unusual for a man even in this age. He seemed otherworldly in the way he carried himself, burdened by a travel bag and a large guitar case. A musician would fare well in here, she smiled to herself at the thought. Ganesa himself blessed this apartment of hers, or so she liked to think after one of her cannabis-induced trances.

He looked approvingly around. She had a vague feeling that she has seen him before. He was one of those types that never really go away from memory. At once, he turned to her and smiled, signing a "thank you".

Oh… - Shanti thought and immediately she felt sorry for him. The traveling musician was mute. That realization made her feel even more acutely the imbalance of the world they lived in for she perceived it as cruelty.

*

When Shanti died, as many mortals do when they reach a certain age, she bestowed upon him her three-room apartment along with her most sincere blessings and wished those of the Hindu gods on Maglor as well. One thing never let her go even in the grasp of her death, although her passing was peaceful enough. Maglor had no signs of age on his face. He still smiled like a bereaved youth, his long hair covering his shoulders. He looked like someone that only knew sorrow all their life. She noticed just before closing her eyes that he bore a faint white scar on his neck and her fingers itched to touch it. It was just not possible. She was always too late to notice things anyway.

Then, Maglor took her hand and placed it on his neck, skin as fine and elastic as that of a youth.

“Sleep, old one”, he whispered. And Shanti did not before she noticed the irony of his words. _Not older than you._.. but that went unsaid.

*

Maglor was commissioned to work on a project for an independent film score. He did many collaborations with artists, composed, produced music, even, but never toured. He had too much to hide and not enough excuses. He could have abandoned everything like he used to do at the beginning of the last century and just go to the mountains and meditate but even there he would have been disturbed, so he made a choice.

He hasn’t seen any of his kind in ages. Actually, the last time he saw his kind was… he couldn’t even remember. Even the faces of his kin were blurred. He tried to draw them on paper but when he looked at them a second time, he realized he got their features all wrong. He could not express his frustration enough so he moved his attention to other things, like the man screaming in Italian below his apartment and tried to make out the words. Actually, two men shouting at each other. It reminded him of his brothers. It made him want to join in but with his voice being now what it was, no more than a whisper, Maglor relented. He was a mute by choice. The damage he made with his own sword only left him with a scar and a whisper for many years.

Very well, Maglor thought and put his headphones on. Old Elvish words came to him and their musicality helped him focus on the task at hand. The words of the fell vow he took a long, long time ago dissipated leaving only the thrum of a heavy bass instead, as he prepared for the gig of a band just out of anonymity.

*

He noticed him in the crowded music hall. Maglor was shrouded in the darkness of the stage, away from the strobe lights that bathed the figure of their lead singer. It mattered not, for he specifically asked the lawyer to write in his contract that he limited the use of his image to only three live shows. He absolutely refused to be part of any recorded session without the disguise of darkness and props. He made music, yes, he played a couple of obscure concerts per year but he knew he had to be careful and disappear in time. He was not going to get old. He would see all of them die. It was just unnatural for them to see him unchanged. So he pushed them away and from the shadow, he played and he watched. Maglor watched and learned again and again that his memory was coming back, that his eyes did not deceive him. He saw one of them, bathed in light, red, blue, green, bathed in dark light. It pooled at his feet like a shroud of olden times. He looked unchanged but confused, altered in ways that were hard to be put into words.

He thought he knew him but he did not. This thought gave him no respite.

*

Clad in the form of a man he went out to alleviate some of his unease at the thought of approaching a cycle again. Oftentimes he lied to himself by saying he had a choice in it. He wasted those chances ages ago, along with his fall from grace. He scanned the crowds but he knew not what he was searching for. He did things because he felt an invisible force push him into it.

“Poor self-control,” he grunted as he almost lost his balance and someone carrying two beer bottles pushed him to the side and into the sharp corner of a table. He felt that acutely. It was going to leave a huge mark on his side. Why was he even here? Maybe the assholes far away on Taniquetil just cursed him to this existence to make him see and feel and realize… but what? He’s been ridden with hurt and disease only not to die. He just carried it.

Like that time when the plague, mother of all contagions spread across Europe or that time he got the worst of the flu strains. He contracted those and many more and suffered through all of them martyr-like. He couldn’t die. That’s it. But he could suffer only to be made anew, devoid of any trace of a previous existence. Out of mirth and resignation, he went again to the bar and bought himself another vodka and downed it in one go just to feel his neck burn and his chest flare with a fiery explosion. He needed to numb himself good for a couple of days. It was coming, he could feel it in the clumps of hair that were falling as he brushed his hand through it and in the missing nails that only left bloody sores on his thumbs. He had to bandage these carefully. They hurt so much, plus, the skin on his back just began to flake like old plaster until blood and flesh could be seen.

In his black leather jacket, ripped jeans and black boots, he strutted towards the exit to just take a piss in one of the not so clean toilets the place had. He pushed a much heavier guy out of his way and simply ignored his threats. These days he was not afraid of anything really. What else could happen to him? He'll soon discard this body for another. He knew he would suffer for it in spades. He came to love the pain of it and this is how he celebrated it, like a little masochist.

*

They were snorting coke in the last stall. He couldn’t say he regretted stepping in on that. Two guys from that forsaken band were down there, half anaesthetized from the many drugs they've taken, the third one their dealer who snorted as much as they did. What kind of dealer samples the stuff, anyway, he thought. He smiled a dirty smile and pushed what looked to be the band’s drummer to he side and served himself a line of coke before anyone could protest.

“You can all suck my dick", he retaliated mockingly when the dealer tried to push him away from taking another line. The dealer would have none of it. He could hear a “Hey, stop!” from the washed-out blond guitarist that was so out of his depth sitting like a child on the toilet seat but ignored it choosing instead to punch his pretty face to gather momentum and push the dealer with his legs straight out of the dirty cubicle. A large, hairy penis has been drawn to the left side in black marker. He began laughing even as a punch landed on his cheek. Violence amused him.

“Peter!” The lead singer’s voice could be heard from the hallways calling for one of the fuckups. “Georgie?” He called again.

With the spiked elbow of his jacket, he just hit the dealer square on his jaw so hard the man was spitting molars and blood then stepped over what he assumed was Georgie, too shitfaced to even feel his bones crack as he broke them under his weight. Alert and high from the coke, he dusted off his black clothes and cleaned the heel of his boots on the denim-clad body of the singer who protested in disgust. He shushed him with a kick. 

“Don’t fuck with me, you mewling idiot!” Said mewling idiot, more out of self-preservation than camaraderie for his suffering colleagues jumped out of his way.

“We should be on stage for the encore... Guys?” This must have been Georgie, high on coke and unaware.

*

He doubted Georgie could play with a broken arm and Peter was simply useless to do anything on stage after his little stunt in the cubicle’s narrow space. His way towards the exit was blocked, though. A tall, dark figure loomed there and pushed him all the way back into another stall.

“What the fuck?” More than hurt, he felt curious.

His eyes met those of the stranger - interesting, he hasn’t seen his kind in ages.

*

When he woke up, he has been tied to a four-poster bed. Well, well, well… he hasn’t been taken prisoner in so long! A gleeful smile threatened to mark his lips but instead, he coughed black blood. Oh, it was beginning. So soon?

In all its futility, he did kick and shout. Of course, he tried to escape from the rope bindings that held him captive. He pushed and pulled at them with all his might, which had barely the intensity it used to, ever since he’s been cursed in this form. He got a sort of twisted pleasure out of the futile struggle and began laughing perversely when he noticed the elf-man from last night sitting in a chair and watching him intently.

At the sight of the elf's impenetrable face, he grew even more unnerved and twisted viciously his arm in the rope until the skin broke and he began bleeding anew. He moaned defeatedly.

Two could play this game. So he shook, and the bed shook with him, blood spilt some more, the mattress creaked, and the elf in front of him seemed to be paying attention now. He took some time to look at the fair features now dour and lined with worry. He felt hot, unbearably hot. Oh, the sweet torment was beginning, and what more could he want than to be tied to a bed when that happened? He will burn this place down with him.

Skin began to peel and scorch and ashes were rising in the dull air of the room. Smoke and ashes, the torn skin gave way to muscles of molten tar and bones like burning coals. His hair lashed like snakes of fire and he half moaned, half groaned, low and in pain. No matter how much he forced himself to accept this process, he could not enjoy it. The ecstasy of transformation dulled to a constant hurt. It was meant to hurt, to remind him of those times and of his deeds. His throat was spilling blood but blood turned to liquid fire and it burned, oh how it burned! Yet he managed with the last drops of his strength to plead.

"Water," he pleaded, all the while his wrists began fuming in the thick rope that was binding them "Untie me, take me to water, I beg thee!"

*

Maglor was aghast at the display before him. Encounters with the supernatural were rare and stopped altogether hundreds of years ago. He thought he extinguished all mystery from this new Arda as he began travelling it and conquering every nook and cranny of hers. He certainly missed this one, whoever and whatever he was. Prompt action was required. The thing on his bed was writhing violently as if dying and perhaps they were. Maglor knew not what to do so he grabbed a knife and cut them loose. The burning thing did not lash out but crawled on the floor instead, leaving a trail of ash and skin and more blood. Viscera poured off his abdomen like a waterfall. It all turned to ash or sublimate before even touching the floor. Maglor grew extremely horrified as in its weakness, the man - thing - demon, slipped on its slick blood and landed on the other side of the door in quite a painful mode. He looked back only to see a gaping hole bearing the creature's form left in his bed.

He tried grabbing it by the arms but was pushed away quite forcefully.

"I'll burn your flesh, you idiot!" Then, hissing, a more conciliatory "Tell me you have a bathtub" followed. Maglor understood. He made way for the creature, opened the door to his bathroom, plugged the bathtub and opened the cold water to the max. As it was filling up, the creature dragged its body pitifully, somehow blackened and ashier than ever and right into the bathtub they propelled themselves. 

The water fizzed like a sulfurous vein right into the ocean's depth. The burning process began anew, more devastating than what he witnessed at first. The hair caught fire first of all and Maglor's instinct was to drown it with water but then the whole of the skin began to crack releasing what could only be described as lava that hardened when it got in contact with the water which continues to pour, as cold as ice. The wall next to the bathtub bore a dark burnt shadow from the flame. The being cursed in a language he only heard several times in his life. it cursed its _ëalar_ and its _hröa_ , it cursed the world and it cursed the very water that appeased its imminent combustion. 

Shortly, there was nothing but a carbonized form sitting in his bathtub and the wild lava bursting from time to time from a crack or two. He continued watching transfixed until he knew that hours passed and below all that hardened volcanic rock that now was cracking and falling away, was now a body made of skin and bone and blood. The sound of pouring water and the touch of carbonized fingers woke him from his reverie.

Maglor jerked awake.

"The way you stare at the state of my _hröa_ is most annoying, elf" the blackened thing croaked. "Why don't you make yourself useful?" he rasped like jilted royalty. 

Sauron, the Shadow, the Enemy, the Terrible, the Plague of the Earth, looked at him with amber-green eyes and lashes that still bore volcanic ash on their pale copper length. Maglor wanted to strangle him.


End file.
